lady always as fond of pranks as ever or not?"

Nurse Chou then also gave a laugh.

"Pranks are nothing," Ying Ch'un smiled. "What I do detest is her
fondness for tittle-tattle! I've never seen any one who, even when
asleep, goes on chatter-chatter; now laughing, and now talking, as she
does. Nor can I make out where she gets all those idle yarns of hers."

"I think she's better of late," interposed Madame Wang. "The other day
some party or other came and they met; so she's to have a mother-in-law
very soon; and can she still be comporting herself like that!"

"Are you going to stay to-day," dowager lady Chia then asked, "or going
back home?"

Nurse Chou smiled. "Your venerable ladyship has not seen what an amount
of clothes we've brought," she replied. "We mean, of course, to stay a
couple of days."

"Is cousin Pao-yue not at home?" inquired Hsiang-yuen."

"There she's again! She doesn't think of others," remarked Pao-ch'ai
smiling significantly. "She only thinks of her cousin Pao-yue. They're
both so fond of larks! This proves that she hasn't yet got rid of that
spirit of mischief."

"You're all now grown up," observed old lady Chia; "and you shouldn't
allude to infant names."